Ardbeg Grooves Limited Edition Celebrates Peat and Love

In what has been a blisteringly hot summer in the UK, Ardbeg whisky celebrated Ardbeg Day on June 2nd, providing festivities and entertainment for whisky-lovers at their distillery. As is usual, Ardbeg day was commemorated with the launch of a new Ardbeg whisky, the Ardbeg Grooves Limited Edition.

With the growing popularity of Ardbeg day, the Ardbeg distillery has only grown in popularity in recent times, with the current owners having announced investment and expansion plans for the Ardbeg distillery in February of 2018.

Ardbeg Day 2018

This year’s Ardbeg day was all about celebrating “Peat and Love”, with the fitting Ardbeg Grooves limited edition as the cornerstone of the celebrations. With a variety of activities and tours all around the distillery, Ardbeg day was part of the Fèis Ìle, the Islay Festival of Music and Malt.

The day also saw the two variants of the Ardbeg Grooves launched, the original limited edition for general release and the Ardbeg committee edition, only available to members of the Ardbeg committee.

Ardbeg Grooves Limited Edition

This new Ardbeg whisky denominated “Grooves” wasn’t just named to be in tandem with the “Peat and Love” theme of 2018’s Ardbeg day, but was also named after the deep grooves in the heavily charred and re-toasted red wine casks used for maturing. This groovy whisky is specially matured to bring out the more intense flavours of “smoked spices, distant bonfires and chilli-seasoned meats.”

Bottled at 46% ABV and originally priced at £98 for a 70cl bottle, this groovy whisky has already become a tough-to-find collector’s item in the world of whisky.

Ardbeg Grooves Committee Edition

Alongside the unique Ardbeg Grooves whisky, the distillery also released a committee edition of the commemorative Ardbeg day whisky. For specific whisky releases, Ardbeg distillery pairs it with a committee edition, that is only available to Ardbeg committee members. The most notable difference between the two bottles is that the committee release is bottled at a higher ABV, 51.6% to be specific.

The Ardbeg committee is an official and free community for Ardbeg whisky lovers that was founded on January 1st, 2000. Aside from special committee bottle releases, committee members receive the yearly publication Momentous Minutes.

Ardbeg Distillery Prepared for Expansion

As Ardbeg continues to release critically acclaimed whiskies, the distillery recently revealed that owners LVMH will be putting in a multimillion-pound investment this coming year. The goal is to expand the distillery, doubling the number of stills to four and allowing the distillery to craft up to 2.4 million litres of alcohol a year.

With plans submitted for work to begin this year, it will be exciting to see how Ardbeg will be expanding their distillery and whisky-making.

Visit Whisky Collectables for the Finest Ardbeg Whisky

With the positive news of the Ardbeg expansion, hopefully, this opens more opportunities for the distillery to craft unique bottles like the Ardbeg Grooves whisky released earlier this year. The subject of high critical acclaim, Ardbeg Grooves looks like another instant classic from the Ardbeg distillery.